per verità neppure esso Anacreonte le potrebbe discernere tra le sue proprie figliuole. They would, we suppose, when cleared of some inaccuracies, probably due to defective typography, be termed good exercises at Eton, but no more; and this is among the easiest descriptions of Greek composition. More remarkable, we think, were his translations from the Greek. In 1815 he published a complete translation of Moschus, with a learned and acute discourse prefixed to it, containing among other things a severe criticism upon the affected and licentious manner of certain French translations of his works, and those of (the so-called) Anacreon. He was, however, at all times a sharper critic on himself than on any other author. He says, while yet a youth, Sono io di tal tempra, che nulla mi va a gusto di quanto ho fatto due o tre mesi innanzi. And he soon became dissatisfied with this work, which, nevertheless, appears to be extremely well executed. He was 12. In 1816, the lad (for he was no more) went on to publish a translation of the first Book of the Odyssey; and in 1817 the second Book of the Æneid. himself sensible of the great difficulty of translating Virgil, and his own effort must be admitted to be a failure; the spirit of the original evaporates in the operation, and the work is dead and flat. Leopardi, however, had a most exalted conception of the function of a translator. He says he translated the second Book, because he could not help it; that after reading it, as was commonly the case with anything that he read and thought really beautiful, he was in an agony until he had cast it in the mould of his own mind: "Perciocchè, letta la Eneide (si come sempre soglio, letta qualcosa è, o mi par, veramente bella), io andava del continuo spasi mando, e cercando maniera di far mie, ove si potesse in alcuna guisa, quelle divine bellezze."-Op. iii. p. 169. And then he laid down a great principle:— "So ben dirti aver io conosciuto per prova, che senza esser poeta non si può tradurre un vero poeta." 13. Every translation of a great work, to be good, must have great original qualities. We must not confound the subject by assimilating the work of the translator to that of the copyist in painting. In that case the problem is to construct an image of the picture, given the very same materials. But, in the case of pure mental products, the material form is the language, and the very condition of the work is that this be changed, as the workman must reproduce in another tongue. In proportion as the original to be rendered is a great one, the union between the thought of the writer and his language is more intimate. At every step as the translator proceeds, he feels that he is tearing asunder soul and body, life and its vehicle; so that in order to succeed in his task, he must, within certain limits, create anew. 14. To create anew was Leopardi's idea of translating; and such he very clearly showed it to be in his later efforts of this description, which are prose translations from Xenophon, Isocrates, Epictetus, and others; executed in the latter part of his life, and only published after his death. It is evident that while he was engaged upon them, the idea and aim of reproduction predominated over that of mere representation. And, so far as we have been able to examine them in close comparison with the original text, we have found them not sufficiently precise in their character-their secondary character, as we readily admit-of copies, to satisfy a scholar of the English type: but admirable in their force and spirit; and, if viewing them with a foreign eye, we may presume to say so much (although we only re-echo the judgments of native and skilled Italians) faultless as compositions. They bear that stamp of freshness and of power, which realises Leopardi's idea of a translator's function in its normal state. 15. We have other evidence, however, how deeply he had drunk in early life at classic fountains. In May 1816, he wrote, and in 1817 he published, in Italian blank verse, a Hymn to Neptune, which was purely his own, but which purported to be a translation from a recently discovered manuscript. We quote the following passage as a specimen : "I Tessali Petreo Diconti, ed altri Onchestio, ed altri pure Ne la tempesta, e su la nave splenda Del sole o de la luna un qualche raggio, Si che campin dal rischio i marinai." If we are not mistaken in our view of the thoroughly Hellenic tone and basis of this composition, it is one going far to warrant what he said of himself, that the Greek form of thought was more clear and vivid in his mind than the Latin or even the Italian. It would appear, from a statement of his own, that the Roman world was completely taken in by this pretended discovery; and the keeper of the Vatican Library would have it, that the original manuscript must have been filched from that great repository of unknown and uncounted treasures. 16. We can dwell but little upon his philological achievements, although they constitute one of his most durable, and also his most innocuous, titles to fame. For, notwithstanding that we have six pretty substantial volumes before us, all filled, or nearly so, with his productions, and everything that they contain is remarkable, there is among them no paper relating to classical philology or criticism so considerable as to give a full impression of his marvellous powers. It is with some reluctance that we refer to the cause. It appears, however, that in the year 1830, when he had left, and, as it proved, had left for ever, his father's house, his health being ruined, and his circumstances narrow to the last degree, he made over the whole of these papers-lavori immensi, as he himself calls them, ingens schedularum copia, according to the receiver himself to Mr. De Sinner; and it is plainly declared that he did this with the expectation-which he founded upon his communications held with Mr. De Sinner in person that they would shortly be given to the world, and would minister alike to his fame and his means of subsistence.* But in 1832, he says that they send him from France, Holland, and Germany memoirs, translations, and laudatory articles, but no remittances. Nay, it appears that, even to this day, no one of all those manuscripts, except certain Excerpta printed at Bonn in 1834 by way of promulsis, has seen the light through the medium of their foster-father. And in the catalogue of his works at the end of the third volume we read with regret some thirteen times the words inedito presso il De Sinner; these titles comprising all his philological papers of moment, except one which he had published many years before. Nor is this singular state of facts ascribable to the negligence of the Italian editors; for we are distinctly informed that application was made to Mr. De Sinner for aid to their edition of the works from the materials in his possession, and that he neither gave the papers, nor assigned any reason for withholding them. We trust that there is a good defence to be made to this indictment; but the first aspect of the case seems to betoken an urgent necessity for either the vindication of such conduct or its amendment. 17. In the year 1814, at the age of sixteen and two months, he placed in his father's hands, as the latter has noted in a memorandum on the manuscript, his Revision and Illustrations of the text of Porphyry De vitâ Plotini et ordine librorum ejus; and even this early production appears to have afforded valuable aid to the labours of an older Op. VI. p. 152. Egli, se piacerà a Dio, li redigerà e completerà, e li farà pubblicare in Germania, e me ne promette danari e un gran nome. |